David_Gaider needs a list

Comments

1) deep and interesting experience/leveling/skill system that allows a creation of a lot of different "builds" with different feels (promotes replay-ability) and skill combinations2) Interesting world/setting and characters/companions3) Some degree of freedom of movement and choices (+ deal with consequences)3+) doesn't need to be isometric. (Yes, I said that, deal with it! 8) ) The Elder Scrolls/Fallout franchises have shown us that you can play an extremely good RPG in first-person/third-person view.

I would really like to see party actions having unforeseen consequences. For instance, you help a crazy old lady recover her cat from a tree and a few chapters later you discover she was the mother of some noble who helps/hinder your progress or maybe a witch in disguise who wanted to test the party for some reason and may help/hinder you.

3+) doesn't need to be isometric. (Yes, I said that, deal with it! 8) ) The Elder Scrolls/Fallout franchises have shown us that you can play an extremely good RPG in first-person/third-person view.

I actually want to emphasize this. I mean, look at Morrowind. It has/had some of the best RPG and story elements (differing factions, class/build combos, reactions to your race, etc.) of any RPG out there. Yeah, the graphics are old, but I don't care. The game is so good that I used to sit there and wait 2 hours, anticipating the whole time, while I installed the fan-made patches that updated the gameplay and graphics. Why is it so good?! Choice. It's also played completely in 1st/3rd person view.

(1) Isometric, with party-wide tactical management necessary, like the BG series. (The worst thing about all the other games in the genre I've played, like the Dragon Age series, the NWN series, and so on, is the fact that you have less control over your companions, or worse, don't need the control because you don't really need to focus on party-wide tactics.)(2) Then just great story, well-developed companions, and immersive world.

1. It should be isometric. This just works better for D&D. Real-time-turned-based-with-pause while you're at it, please.

2. Lots of different build options. I'd like all the core classes and races of 5th edition available at launch, if possible. If that's too much, at least give us half a dozen races and some of the more flavorful classes. (Bard, druid and paladin are my personal favourites.)

3. We need a bunch of fully-controllable potential party members with a good spread of classes and races.

I'd specify that the companions should be well-written and engaging, but I've loved almost every companion David Gaider has ever written, so this is not something I'm concerned about.

1) The three-tier dialogue limit Trent Oster mentioned has got to go. Not only does it unnecessarily restrict one of the few ways players can express roleplaying agency in-game, you run the risk of supposedly-different options all leading to the exact same outcome.

2) In terms of basic design, Beamdog knows how to create diverse and potentially interesting characters. Find stories that suit them, and writing that makes the most of them. And please, do the bare minimum of giving Evil characters enough support to form an actual party instead of poaching from Good and Neutral.

3) Between BioWare, Black Isle and Obsidian, we've seen the Sword Coast, we've seen the Underdark, we've seen Icewind Dale and Rashemen and Chult. The Realms are a big place, and there are settings that as far as I know have never been used in a D&D game: Calimshan, Sembia, Kara-Tur, Maztica (or, I guess, "Returned Toril" now?). A change of scenery would go a long way.

If we are talking specifically about a D&D game, rather than a generic Fantasy RPG, my list is:1) Faithful implementation of D&D rules. Pick an edition (any but 4th) and implement it consistently, in depth, and in breadth (see point 2).2) Capture the flavor of a D&D setting. By default we might assume Faerun, but pick your setting and capture the full richness of D&D. That means a wide variety of character races, classes, and options as we level. A wide range of well known monsters and lore, e.g., beholder, dragons, the legion of undead creations, idiomatic magic weapons, hints a famous relics, etc., etc., etc. This is something that Balder's Gate excelled at, but also NWN2 and PS:T, in their respective ways. NWN(1) did impressively well on the rules, but relied on the players to deliver the world - prior to the expansions. Some other (non-bioware!) games have been more limited...3) Tell a great story, while preserving player agency. This rarely makes economic sense, as any given play through will see a fraction of the programmed content, but makes for a gripping player experience that will guarantee replay after replay after replay. This is what ME1 promised, for example, and ME3 failed to deliver, while ME2 showed promise that the series might to either way...

Beyond that, be original and have fun. If you folks have fun making the game, there is a better chance that will filter through to us having fun playing it.

Hmmm, just realized that (3) has an unstated additional goal:4) focus on supporting a single-player campaign. That may be a party controlled by a single player, but do not require multiple co-operating (or competing) players online in order to make the game fun. If I want to D&D with a group, it is much more effective to play with a real party, PnP, in the real world. A computer RPG lets me play my fantasies when I cannot find those real-world companions to explore these worlds with. Multiplayer support would be a bonus, for sure, but should not detract from providing a strong, single-player focused campaign.

3) Between BioWare, Black Isle and Obsidian, we've seen the Sword Coast, we've seen the Underdark, we've seen Icewind Dale and Rashemen and Chult. The Realms are a big place, and there are settings that as far as I know have never been used in a D&D game: Calimshan, Sembia, Kara-Tur, Maztica (or, I guess, "Returned Toril" now?). A change of scenery would go a long way.

Not that I do not disagree, but there needs to be familiarity as well. Starting somewhere along the Sea of Swords (such as Luskan) and then moving to one of these unused areas would set the tone of familiarity for the player to settle into the game before being thrown into a sense of discovery.

Discovery first, can be jarring especially if it is something like Maztica or Kara-Tur, since the player doesn't have much lore or canon to go on and that lore would have to be described quickly in the game while attempting to set up a plot.

Calimshan, Thay (& Rashamen even though it was in MotB) however would need less lore thrust onto the player since a lot of it has already been established through some previous games.

1. Modability and customization (D&D is all about house rules, after all)2. Quality story writing and immersion OVER graphics!!! (I've had enough of gaming companies that poor all their resources into graphics and abandon the story and the writing)3. Interactive world and NPCs with varied, different plots and dialogues that are reactive to player decisions

I started a discussion about some ideas I had several months ago here if anyone is interested.

2. Get rid of the stereotypical 3 dialogue choices (not that I have much faith in this one ever coming true since its Beamdog we're talking about):"Kind response""Sarcastic/'I want to be a dragon'/lolrandom""Evil jerkass/I'm going to murder you now"

3. An NWN style toolset and multiplayer. Or just give me NWN:EE already with a resurrected master server so I can play with my friends again, that would be much better.

1. A diverse story - that is to say good/evil/neutral types all have avenues open to them in the story. I'm not asking for 2 distinct games, just a little bit of breadth when it comes to decision making time. 2. A visually reactive world - no I'm not asking for a super physics engine, I just want to visually see changes in the game world. Like D'Arnise's keep in BG2 post-clean up, or characters moving from city to city as a result of decisions the player has made. 3. If NPCs are a thing, I'd prefer to have quantity over quality as far as the story goes (unless you can do both ). There's something to be said for allowing the player to make up their own stories and maintain a bit of mystery when it comes to the people they have to spend the game with.

Alliances with monsters instead of mere annihilation of non-humanoids would be refreshing. I'm still bitter about the Banner of the Chimera in IWDII and the utter disregard of the possiblity of joining forces with them.

A rating of PG-18 (or at least PG-16 like Planescape: Torment) would be nice. Medieval fantasy catering for young teens stop to be interesting after reaching a certain age.

1. Moddable - No question about it, mods are the ONLY reason BG lasted as long as it did for me. Without SCS and the likes, I would not be playing (and indeed did stop playing IWD:EE for the lack of them).

2. No Dexterity-based Combat - By that I don't mean a dexterity stat (obviously), I mean the manual dexterity of the player. I respect people who like their hand-eye coordination to play a role in games, but I don't want it in THIS kind of game. I want combat to be cerebral, about choice and strategy and not about a twitchy finger.

3. Meaningful Choices - One of the things that annoys me most about many modern-day games is the illusion of choice. They are so often completely on rails, distracting you with plot developments where you SEEM to have a hand in events, but ultimately leading you to the exact same game states down the line. Of course, this is a very difficult thing to implement well in a game. You have to have SOME linearity if you want a story to develop. However, I think that the degree of freedom and choice does leave a lot of room for negotiation. An example is BG2, where very little you do has any ACTUAL impact - whether you're a mass-murdering lunatic or a paragon of virtue, all that really changes are some items/xp, and the post-ending credits. More depth and impact here would be MUCH appreciated, but, again, I realize that some constraints remain a practical necessity (and also desirable, a story-poor sandbox is boring, too).

believable thieves and thief quests -- don't reduce thieves to agile fighters and let their quest revole around finding the next pair of uber daggers.

magic that matters outside of combat (!!!) -- so bored with all these games that reduce mages to elemental battering rams (yes I'm looking at you DAII and DA:I). Soooo much wasted potential ... it's mindblowing ...

1. Exploration: One thing I always thought put BGI and BGII above everything else was the fact that after Candlekeep/Chateau Irenicus, I was free to do whatever I want.2. Character creation choices matter: Avoid obvious "dump" stats by adding a lot of different checks for all stats, and make NPCs react different to different classes and/or races.3. Organic world: Choices matter and effect other things, random things happen and no two playthroughs is exactly the same even with the same class/race/etc.

1. Real Time With Pause. Combat in these new turn-based Unity games is awful. Jarring and immersion-breaking. Setting rules for x actions per y seconds but then letting everything run fluidly in real-time was revolutionary when BG came out, and is one of the core defining characteristics that makes these games great. The only improvement I'd suggest is to add an initiative mechanic. Nothing too complicated, just 1) don't let APR override weapon speed, and 2) have actions get slight bonuses or penalties to speed-of-performance by a dice roll. And make that dice roll be modified by Dex and moddable.

2. Rules moddability. As said above, without house rules D&D would be an annoying and silly bundle of straitjacket rules than few people would enjoy. You average computer game just gives you a set of rules and a set of button-presses to accomplish things, and then off you go. But D&D is very specifically meant to be more flexible than that. Achieving even a fraction of the flexibility was the other revolutionary aspect of BG. So follow that example, and expand on it. If some piece of code has to do with letting the game run, then go ahead and hard-code it. But if it involves an aspect of the rules that someone might conceivably like to house-rule, then make it moddable.

3. Campaign moddability. This is one of the few places where BG is weak. There are tons of tweak mods out there, and a fair amount of NPC mods with some dialogue and short "quests," but proper adventures are very rare. They are very difficult and time-consuming to make. Contrast this with NWN/NWN2 and the difference is shocking. Make it easy to make fan-made adventures so players can spend more time enjoying that great flexible ruleset. This will increase replayability, sales, and renown.

4. (Bonus suggestion!) For heaven's sake release it for iPad. It's a game system where you point at things on the screen. You don't need a mouse & keyboard, you don't need a flight stick and pedals... touchscreen is the *perfect* interaction method for these games. The idea that you need to sit at a desk in front of a monitor in order to play an isometric point-and-click game like PoE is a joke.

For the sake of argument, let's pretend we were making a D&D game of some kind.

What would be your top-three list of things you absolutely, positively would need to see present in that game -- whether it be in the story or the feature list?

1) A single-player, isometric, party-based, RTwP game set in a thus-far unused part of the Forgotten Realms and using 5e rules.

2) A deep, rich, nonlinear story that draws you in, lots of roleplaying opportunities and interractions with the world and with NPCs, a range of possible responses to dialog, real consequences for dialog choices and in-game actions, a ton of side quests including involving mysteries and puzzles, no level scaling, non-combat paths for overcoming obstacles and completing quests, and a great set of fully customizable companions with personal agendas and quests.

3) PLEASE have dragons that you don't have to fight, with whom you can interract, exchange knowledge or just banter, gain items and/or quests, and perhaps even become friends and/or allies.

I would like to see some kind of system (by default) where companions could actually die in combat and saving/reloading to bring them back would be limited. Some sort of ironman mode by default. With an optional "story" mode for players who don't enjoy tactical combat so much where companions would only get knocked out.

Combat with realistic consequences would help achieve a much more immersive atmosphere.

For example brass dragons love to talk above everything else,(draconic noober version?) or copper dragons who are born tricksters and jokesters..

Draconic Noober, Noober the lich, Noober the mind flayer ... should be available on Legacy of the Noober difficulty as will put on a test every hardcore player who conquered Legacy of the Bhaal + Sword Coast Stratagems.